


The Royal Preternatural Team

by emirenaexo



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Preternaturals, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:57:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2700422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emirenaexo/pseuds/emirenaexo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I posted this once before, but have done some significant editing. I hope you give it a shot--and let me know what you think.</p><p>Penny Davis, Head of the Royal Preternatural Team, swoops into Sherlock's life through a peculiar case, but it seems that everyone around him already knows her. Caught in a landslide of the intrigue of uncertainty, sentiment develops and leaves both Penny and Sherlock reliant upon each other for survival.</p><p>In other words, I'm really terrible at writing interesting summaries, but was inspired by some of the facets of Laurell K Hamilton's <i> Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter </i> series, and attempted to use some of them in conjunction with Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**\--Interesting/bizarre case; if you've got time, we'd appreciate your input. *DI Lestrade**

Sherlock sighed at his phone, expecting something dull and easy to solve like all the rest of Lestrade’s ‘interesting cases.’ The address pinged in next, so he pulled on his Belstaff and swooped out the door, catching a cab and directing it to the proper location.

He ducked under the police tape and disregarded the bitter glares of the police officers on guard, taking the steps in the building two at a time before grabbing gloves at the door and stepping into the room where a bloody body lay sprawled, face up, on the floor.

Blonde female, mid-thirties, middle-class, cat owner, overweight. Gutted. Now that was interesting.

Sherlock pulled on his gloves and crouched down, pulling out his tools and examining the cuts on the body, which were definitely not made by any kind of blade, but couldn’t possibly be from claws, because no animal had claws that shape. Approximately the size of a large tiger, but… hand shaped. 

“There’s no murderer, Sherlock; she was clawed to death by some animal.”

“There’s no animal on the planet with paws the size or shape of these gashes, Anderson; don’t be daft.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Holmes,” announced a voice from the mouth of the alleyway, “you are equally as out of your depth as the Yard on this one.”

All eyes turned to the petite redhead pulling on a second rubber glove. She, like Sherlock, was in street clothes and distinctly separate from the police. “If you’ll excuse me,” she muttered sarcastically to both Donovan and the tech who were in her way; both sidestepped and let her pass, the tech more swiftly than Donovan.

“And who the hell are you?” DI Lestrade demanded immediately.

The woman crouched down to sit on her heels, careful not to flash to anybody what her skirt so tactfully hid, and dropped open her badge; her smile held little more life than the body on the floor. “Penny Davis, Head of the Royal Preternatural Team.”

“Never heard of it,” Lestrade scowled.

Penny raised her eyebrows and nodded sarcastically, putting her badge back into the ‘secret’ pocket in the waistband of her skirt. “That was the idea, Inspector.” She returned her attention to the body and everyone noted the way her posture mirrored Sherlock’s. “Mr. Holmes, you are correct that no known animal exists which can make these marks on a body, but you will by now also have observed that these cuts were not made with any blade.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the woman. “And what, then, do you propose did this, Ms. Davis?”

Penny maintained eye contact for a long three seconds. “Detective Inspector, I need all non-essential personnel out of the room, please. That means everyone except for you, Sgt. Donovan, and Mr. Holmes.”

“Sherlock isn’t Scotland Yard,” Lestrade began to complain.

“Do not argue with me, Inspector,” Penny said firmly.

Frustration pouring from every pore in his body, DI Lestrade waved everyone out of the room, much to a sullen Dr. Anderson’s distaste.

With the door cutting off anybody else, Donovan stood with a scowl and her arms crossed; Lestrade stood a few feet away from the body’s ankles, hands on his hips in overt confusion.

“Join me on this side of the body, Mr. Holmes,” Penny said next, “if you would.”

Skeptically, Sherlock stood and walked around to crouch beside the woman.

“Your right hand, please?” she said. Sherlock held it out and she reached for him. “If I may?” she inquired, but didn’t make eye contact, leaving mere millimeters between their fingers.

Sherlock caught a hint of expensive-smelling perfume, but couldn’t name the scent. He inhaled more deeply under the pretense of sighing heavily and nodding.

Penny looked at him out of the corner of her eye and said under her breath, “It’s _Daisy_ by Marc Jacobs, Mr. Holmes; you only had to ask” before increasing her volume to address the entire room. “You asked what I proposed did this, and the simple answer is an individual infected with lycanthropy. The three of you are officially sworn to silence under royal order, and punishment for breaking that silence will be most distasteful. Now, the shift causes an increase in body mass by approximately half, but never more than 75 percent.” 

Penny placed her hand over top Sherlock’s and spread his fingers wide by curling hers around his palm between them; she guided his hand over the length of the body along the path of the scars and looked over, making eye contact. “Do you see the pattern, Mr. Holmes?”

That was a mistake. Never had she seen eyes as intense as this man’s, blue and green and aqua all at once, like the sea after a storm when the sun breaks. They were so beautiful it made her chest ache.

“A… werewolf?” Lestrade spluttered, breaking the spell woven in the air between Penny and Sherlock.

“Unlikely,” Sherlock immediately answered, still holding eye contact with his red-haired counterpart. Her pupils had dilated in reaction to him, and her pulse had risen slightly, but she gave none of the other physical signs of attraction that other women, namely Molly, usually gave. What to make of that, he wondered. “Wolves have thick, blunt claws; these gashes are too narrow and clean to belong to a wolf victim.”

“You’re all mad! None of these things exist!”

Penny gave the Inspector a hard look over her shoulder. “I head the Preternatural Team, Inspector, not the Supernatural team. The difference lies in the _realis_ quality of the crime. We are merely very good at secrecy, and they disinterested in publicity.”

Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, clearly attempting to work through the desire to retain his veil of disbelief. Inevitably, curiosity won out. “Then what?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Sherlock said to Penny, who had only just taken her hand back off of his, “but probably some form of large cat.”

Penny nodded, locking a tight lid on her emotions and, more importantly, her libido. “London is home to a Jaguar prowl; the Lions tend to stay in Cardiff, although the few loners that live here are too large to make this pattern.”

She tilted her head to the left, and then to the right, tracking patterns and details she couldn’t coherently illustrate on the body. She lifted a hand and examined nails, fingertips and palm. She’d just set the hand down and begun to move toward the face when a thought struck her and she returned to the hand. The ring finger had a tan line and an indentation where a ring had, at some point in recent history, sat. “Married, or recently divorced.”

“Is that significant for a _preternatural_ case?” Donovan asked snidely.

“It very well could be, Sergeant Donovan,” Penny replied briskly over her shoulder. “They hide well in society because they are still people. They are merely more dangerous, and harder to kill. Spurned lovers, jealous ex-boyfriends, angry husbands—all potential directions.”

“We don’t _kill_ people, Ms. Davis,” Sgt. Donovan replied tightly.

“No,” Penny agreed, “you don’t.” She pulled off her right glove and, without asking, used Sherlock’s knee to push herself up to her feet before peeling off her other glove. “I need the case files on the two other murders like this from the past month. You can call me on this number when you have them ready for me.” She handed Lestrade a business card on her way past, threw her gloves into the appropriate can by the door and let Donovan push it open. She turned around in the doorway and smiled at the room. “Gentlemen, Sgt. Donovan, it’s been a pleasure.”

Behind her, Penny heard Donovan announce, “She’s just as psychotic as you are, Freak.”

“High functioning sociopath, Donovan; how many times must I remind you,” Sherlock replied snidely, his voice growing closer. Quick footsteps sounded down the stairs and then he was walking beside her.

“I must advise you against close association, Mr. Holmes,” Penny said emptily, fishing a phone out of her pocket. “I tend to be bad for career advancement.”

“In that association with you prevents it, or has a tendency to cause it?” Sherlock asked suspiciously.

Penny laughed and handed him a business card. “Excellent question. Unfortunately, I haven’t the time to answer it right now, but if you want to ask the questions that are really bothering you, feel free to drop by later this afternoon.”

“Are you _dismissing_ me?” Sherlock demanded, holding the card flippantly between two fingers.

“Oh no, my dear Mr. Holmes,” Penny replied earnestly, looking over her shoulder as she continued out the building, “I believe I’m recruiting you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's part 1! I haven't Brit-picked it because, let's face it, as an American there are only so many things I'll notice. But if anything is off, _please_ let me know and I'll correct it promptly. I appreciate your eyeballs and your opinions! Next segment should be up before too long!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a lot longer than I had intended--sorry about that. But thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Please let me know if there are any inconsistencies or errors of any kind so that I can correct them.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated like crazy! C=

John Watson returned to the flat and was greeted preemptively by the aggravated wailing of Sherlock’s violin. “What’s got him in a twist?” John mumbled to himself and jerked the mail out of the post box before climbing up the stairs and pretending not to notice his stiff knee. Inside, Sherlock was standing in the window, watching the street, and playing his violin without even pretending a semblance of pianissimo. Not like it mattered; the neighbors complained about everything, so about some loud, well-played violin in the middle of the afternoon they could bugger off.

The doctor dropped the mail on the coffee table and asked—without expecting an answer—“What’s got you riled up?” on the way to the kitchen to put on a pot of tea.

And, as expected, Sherlock didn’t answer. Probably didn’t even hear him, John realized and rolled his eyes, refilling the tea kettle and turning on the burner. “Bloody mind palace…” He turned to the fridge, hoping to see any food hidden among the experiments worth scraping together for lunch. 

Eyeballs on a jar on the eye-level shelf, fingers in the vegetable crisper, and a kidney in the cheese drawer. “Bloody brilliant,” John swore under his breath. He immediately flung the door shut—perhaps a little harder than was necessary, he had to admit—and returned to the stove to kill the burner.

“Where are you going?” Sherlock demanded as John passed back through the living room.

“Oh, so now I exist, is that it?” John replied and rolled his eyes. He seemed to do that a lot around his flat mate. Around, about, toward—if it involved the younger Holmes brother, it probably deserved a doctorly eye-roll. “We haven’t any food. You know, the stuff that normally goes in a fridge? There is none.”

“I was called in on a case this morning,” Sherlock said, ceasing his playing, but not turning.

John’s stance changed, but not significantly. He grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and began to pull it on. “Oh? Anything interesting?”

Sherlock’s head turned, giving John a view of the brunette’s angular profile. “The victim was attacked by a were-Jaguar, according to the Head of the Royal Preternatural Team, Penny Davis.”

John’s face fell a little bit, and he shrugged his coat onto his shoulders before flexing his hands uncertainly at his sides, turning to look toward the door and wishing he could just silently, abruptly leave like Sherlock tended to. “Ah,” he finally offered, looking down at the floor, the wall, the coffee table, the kitchen, anything and anywhere that wasn’t his flat mate.

“Ah?” Sherlock repeated indignantly and turned around to face John. “Ah!? What the bugger do you mean ‘Ah’?!”

John shrugged uncomfortably. “I saw a lot of things out in the desert. A lot of things got blacked out. The military runs like that.”

“I am related to the British government, and nobody thought to share with me an entire realm of entirely valid and fascinating information like the fact that there is a team of Preternatural case workers?”

John stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked at Sherlock’s angry, but also hurt, face for only a moment before looking away. “Sworn to absolute secrecy, you know. So were you, if you met Penny, which means that you’re damned lucky I already know who she is and what she does.”

“Or what?” Sherlock scoffed.

A shadow passed over John’s face that made Sherlock’s arrogance falter. “Or even Mycroft wouldn’t be able to save you from her.”

“I’m meeting her in an hour.”

“You are, or we are?” John asked, eyebrows raised.

“I am. As of yet, our relationship is undisclosed and that is potentially to my advantage. Besides, you have a date.”

John almost jumped. He’d forgotten about… _Completely_ forgotten about… Tina. Tina? Tasha? Trisha? Tina… Tina. “Right. Well. Good luck then. And for the love of God, be nice, would you?”

Sherlock scoffed.

Twenty minutes later found Sherlock debating over silk shirts. He’d use anything he could as an advantage, and her attraction to him was about the best it could get. His phone pinged as he tucked it into his trousers, and he walked over to check it while he fastened the button.

**\--There’s a car waiting for you, Mr. Holmes. Don’t keep him waiting. /PD**

**\--Eager to see me? /SH**

His phone buzzed in his pocket while he slid into his coat and curled a scarf around his neck. He ignored it until he was seated in the provided vehicle, and only then did he retrieve the device and cross his legs.

**\--Like a beggar for the dentist. /PD**

Sherlock stared at the SMS and wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

Eager? Loath? Sherlock couldn’t tell, and that vexed him. Damned sentiment. What good did it ever do?

The car eventually arrived at a luxury hotel, outside of which Penny stood in the same business suit from that morning, dark grey, with a forest green silk shell beneath the jacket.

“Mr. Holmes,” she said guardedly in greeting.

“Sherlock, please,” he replied calmly and strolled up to her.

“As you will. Sherlock, this way, please.”

Sherlock followed the significantly shorter redhead into the hotel, across the lobby and into an elevator, where he purposefully stood a few inches too close to her just to gauge reaction. Heart rate stable, body temperature stable, but she kept glancing his direction out of the corner of her eye.

They proceeded into the living area of a suite, where Penny suggested Sherlock remove his coat and offered him a drink, which he politely declined. In the kitchenette, filling a glass of water, Penny allowed herself to take in the royal purple silk that graced the brunette’s body much more closely than it had any right to beneath his almost-too-small suit jacket. He did that on purpose, the pompous ass.

Sherlock glanced into a mirror and fluffed his hair with both hands before turning and sitting on one end of the couch, without hugging the armrest.

He was baiting her, and Penny knew it. She wasn’t going to fall for the feigned interest, regardless of how well he played it, and they’d both be better off the sooner he realized that. Attractive though he may be, irresistible he was not.

She slipped out of her heels and into a pair of ballet flats and strolled across the room to sit across from him in a separate chair. If he was going to play a game, she would just play it better. It was what she did. “You have questions.”

“For which you have answers,” Sherlock replied skeptically.

“For which I will attempt to have answers,” Penny corrected him firmly. “I do not pretend to know everything. Your elder brother seems to do quite well enough in that department.”

Sherlock immediately scowled. Of course she knew Mycroft. Did anybody important not know Mycroft? He was the bloody British government; of course not. “Yes, as always,” he muttered.

Penny kept her smile to herself and took a long drink of water while she waited for him to start asking questions. She wasn’t just going to volunteer information at random. She would answer his questions, but only just, and he would get nothing more. It was bound to infuriate him.

“Right then. Royal Preternatural Team. Explain.”

“RPT is a special unit instated by the Queen in the mid-nineties after a series of homeless murders in Bristol, which turned out to be the work of a were-leopard loner attempting to display dominance and take over the pard. Such action is illegal, of course. The less attention drawn to the ‘more’ of life people so desperately seek, the better.” Penny shook her head briefly and took another sip of water. “Our job is to intervene on Preternatural cases—or any that appear to be, until proven otherwise—and neutralize the issue with the assistance of whatever force or tool we deem necessary.”

“Sanctioned murder,” Sherlock mumbled.

“When necessary, yes,” Penny confirmed ruefully. “We don’t like to do it, Sherlock, do believe me. We aim to be merely the hand of justice, not the rod of punishment. Unfortunately, with the lycanthropy comes a particular violence of temperament; it’s as if a side effect of the condition is overpowering anger. And it is such anger,” Penny whispered absently, life fading from her eyes for a moment as her mind replayed snips of her gory past. 

Her body was littered with scars from the past several years of heading this team. Most of her colleagues bore similar scars, although none of them sported as many as she did. It was part of the reason she didn’t date—although it was virtually impossible to when you couldn’t talk about the thing that consumed almost every waking moment of your life anyway. She had a couple of stab wounds from stray teeth and claws that managed to find purchase, one her hip and another in her right shoulder, and a jagged set of two in her left calf (disguised by her nylons, which was the main reason she wore them at all). There was a nasty set of claw marks—quite similar to those on the body that morning—splayed across her left side, from just under her breast on the front of the ribcage down and across almost to the back of her hip. Her arms and legs were smattered with a collection of slashes in varying degrees of severity—some of which were faded almost to complete obscurity—from a desperate attempt to immobilize her—as if it would have had any effect on her particular talents. The gashes down her side had damn near killed her at the time, and the healing process had been agonizingly slow. The rest of them had been problematic (and excruciatingly painful), but not life-threatening.

Penny blinked, and immediately it was all gone. The mask was back up. “As you can imagine,” she continued levelly, “the Jaguar prowl is ruled by a king and a queen, the alpha male and female, if you prefer, who keep their people in check, set and enforce rules, mete out punishment for breaking them. We don’t step into prowl politics until and unless it becomes necessary, and doing so is always a right pain in the arse, so ‘necessary’ isn’t stretched to be met,” she emphasized with an eye roll.

“Tell me about this prowl. How many? How do you know?”

“There are 34 jaguars all together, including a few children. Any new prowl members are required to register themselves and list both permanent and current addresses and phone numbers. The RPT keeps close regular tabs on them—albeit from a distance.”

“Are there other groups like this one?”

“RPT or were-jaguars?”

“Both, I suppose. RPT Specifically.”

“Of course.”

Frustrated with the lack of further answer, or the offering of more information, he maintained arrogantly calm and steepled his fingers before him, forefingers just past the tip of his nose. He rotated them forward to say, “You must confer with them,” and then he dropped his hands back down to his lap.

“At times, and in varying degrees, yes.”

“And there are protocols for situations of international nature.”

“Of course.”

Sherlock decided to switch gears and change the nature of his questions. “And you, then; how did you end up heading such a team, and at such a young age?”

Although Penny wasn’t nearly as young as Sherlock believed, she chose not to comment, either nonverbally or with words. Instead, she picked up her water glass, still half full, and held it in front of her until Sherlock’s expression began to change, and then she let her hand fall away from the glass, which continued to hang in the air.

Fascinated and started, Sherlock sat up and leaned forward. Through a series of glances between her and the glass, he reached out and touched it, waved a hand beneath it, grabbed it and moved it around. After a moment, Penny motioned for him to let go of the glass. Uncertainly, he did, and, corresponding to a series of gentle motions of her fingers, the glass returned to the space in front of her. Suddenly, the glass was a sphere of shards hovering around a glass-shaped body of water, and Sherlock visibly jumped. She made it spin around a bit for a couple of seconds and then made a motion which flung all the shards back together into a perfect glass of water, off of which she casually sipped before returning to the side table.

“A rare gift,” Penny announced simply, folding her hands on her knee, “and one which remains nameless beyond well-controlled telekinesis.”

“Does it require touch?” Sherlock asked, fascinated.

Penny shook her head and gestured minutely toward the throw pil-low on the opposite side of the couch. A simple gesture flung it through the air into Sherlock’s shoulder, after which it plopped harmlessly back onto the couch cushion.

“That doesn’t answer how you came to be appointed to this position,” Sherlock finally said, recovered enough to speak. “And how many persons are there on this team?”

“We are fifteen,” Penny replied easily. “Eight men and seven women spread out across the country. Cardiff, Gloucester, London, Liverpool, et cetera. How I came into my position is not actively relevant.”

Sherlock exhaled sharply through his nose, but didn’t test it. “You don’t reside in London then.”

“If you can give me sufficient reason that my place of residence is relevant, I will answer your question.”

“Regardless of how often one might visit London, unless one lives in London there are things that can never be known. If I am to rely upon your expertise to solve this case and stop any more deaths from occurring, then I need to know that you will not slow me down with inaccuracies, misunderstandings, or misconceptions regarding mine.”

“I do reside in London, although I find myself in more hotels than I might like.”

“For what reason?”

“There are a plethora of reasons, as it happens, and none of them are immediately relevant.”

“You have people to whom you are close, I suspect,” Sherlock mused aloud, “family, close friends, a lover. Don’t they ask questions about your infrequent use of your home?”

“This is information I would be loath for you to have in the event you chose to be my enemy, Sherlock,” Penny remarked coolly.

Sherlock just smiled at her, and there wasn’t a hint of sociopath in it. Well. Maybe just a hint. “Me, make an enemy of a woman who can shatter a glass with her psyche? Never.”

Penny couldn’t help snickering, but soon sobered. “Unfortunately, my family is distant, and friends fall away when your job requires complete secrecy. As for lovers,” Penny scoffed and rolled her eyes. “We’ll leave it at there isn’t one and call it sufficiently answered.”

A mobile started to ring, and Penny excused herself to find and answer it. “Davis… Yes… Currently in a meeting… No, it’s fine; what is it? …Stand by for the call, but do not act until I’ve cleared a response… Thank you.” 

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at the woman standing in the kitchenette, holding her mobile in front of her. She was attractive, he had to admit, although generally a little small for his taste. Short, shoulder length red hair, blue eyes, pale skin, pink lips; she was doubtless older than she looked, because she only looked mid-twenties.

“Unfortunately, Sherlock, our time seems to have run out. I do hope to see you in the morning at the Yard with DI Lestrade and Sgt. Donovan. 9 o’clock; don’t be late—and do bring your charming Dr. Watson, would you? His expertise in the field will be invaluable to this case.”

Sherlock bristled at the mention of John, but tried to mask any outward appearance of discontent. She didn’t seem to notice, although she was clearly more than she seemed.

So he left. Let himself be chauffeured back to 221B, where John was unfortunately not waiting for him, but his Stradivarius invariably was. The bow touched the strings, and the room faded away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post 2 chapters tonight since I took so long to update. Happy reading!

Even after having made the desired impression upon the younger Holmes brother and his friends at the Yard—whether he’d call them friends notwithstanding—Penny chose to carry forward with professional attire. Casual clothing was a luxury for her, even on the job, when she was usually capable of minimizing a threat from enough distance to preserve her clothing. She paired a white silk, sleeveless shell with a black pencil skirt and a wide belt around her waist, although she realized while in the mirror to fix her hair that the outfit made her appear even more petite than her business suit had, because without the added structure of the blazer, it was glaringly apparent just how thin she was. 

It was like every time David Tennant stepped into a space suit in his seasons of Doctor Who; you knew he was thin, but until you saw all that fabric bunched up underneath the straps holding him in it didn’t occur to you just how thin.

Black pumps and a matching necklace-earring set of black sapphires completed the ensemble, although she realized just how ostentatious her scars were when left out in the open like this. Nothing to be done for it, she supposed, and she left the sanctity of her hotel room for the car waiting for her in the courtyard. Her assistant graciously provided her with a light, but hot, breakfast in the car, for which she murmured a quiet thanks and slid wearily into the seat.

The night before had unfortunately spiraled out of control on a separate front. An ongoing situation with a lone werelion Rex had escalated beyond reasonable conflict and she had been forced to step in. Nobody had died, to Penny’s preference, but the Rex had certainly suffered some damage that would keep him subdued for a long enough period of time that his punishments would have weight. He was being held in south London with one of her colleagues until further notice.

Finding the designated conference room was easy enough, as there was already arguing coming out of it between Sgt. Donovan and Sherlock, who seemed to be particularly at odds. Considering Sherlock’s somewhat abrasive nature and Donovan’s badge-supplied attitude, it was relatively unsurprising, Penny supposed, but still grating.

Once Penny stepped in, the argument ceased, and everyone but John Watson looked unhappy. John smiled brightly and walked over to the woman and offered his hand. “Great to see you again, Penny. How’ve you been?”

Penny shook his hand and smiled back, and she was grateful that there was no hint of romantic interest anywhere in the interaction. One uncertain connection throughout this was more than enough. And Sherlock was really more than enough uncertainty for anyone. “Dr. Watson, always a pleasure. I’ve been well, and you?”

He glanced at Sherlock and smiled, nodding slightly. “Never been better.”

Penny cocked an eyebrow and couldn’t help but smirk. “Yeah?”

John practically deflated. “Not like that. It’s just… been nice to be busy again.”

“How’s your shoulder?” she asked seriously, brows furrowing slightly. “And the leg?”

“Better. Usually. Thank you.”

“You two know each other?” DI Lestrade said.

“Yes,” Penny replied simply and strolled toward the table to take her seat. 

“What the hell happened to your arms?” Sgt. Donovan demanded suddenly.

Penny rolled one of her shoulders forward and looked at it disinterestedly. “I was mauled by a lion who thought that immobilizing me would be beneficial. A grave mistake, you can be certain.”

“What the hell did you do to him?”

Penny smiled, but there was no humor in it. Suddenly, Sherlock had an idea what he looked like at crime scenes, and he allowed himself to understand Donovan’s use of “freak” just a tiny bit, although he still didn't forgive her for it. “I took care of the situation, Sergeant, and that’s all you need to know.”

The case files were sitting neatly on the table in front of her, and she immediately placed a pair of glasses on her nose and began to peruse through the first one while the DI and Sergeant walked her through the cases. Photos, the autopsy results, detailed records of the crime scene, victim profile. “One Jenny Mavis,” Penny murmured to herself, staring hard at the paper. She dropped it down and glanced up over her glasses at the others in the room to find that they’d stopped talking and were looking at her. “Now that’s a little eerie, don’t you think?”

“Purely coincidence,” DI Lestrade said reassuringly.

Penny nodded, but immediately opened the other two files. “Leonard ‘Lennie’ Davies, and Brenda ‘Benny’ Curtis.” She looked back up and her face was very serious. “Do you still think it’s purely coincidence, Detective Inspector?”

“What? Do you think they’re sending _you_ a message?” he asked skeptically.

Penny leveled her gaze on the man and replied, “Merely because this is the first _you_ have ever heard of me does not mean the same for the Preternatural community, Detective. There are some social circles in which my name is _very_ well known.”

“And what is it you’ve done that makes them target you?” Sgt. Donovan demanded. “Who are you?”

“Let us merely say that due to the inherent nature of Preternaturality, my authority and capacity as Head of RPT is periodically challenged. It is no secret that power of any nature can drive one to madness, and often that madness incites a desire to compete with the perceived, or rumoured power of another.”

“What kind of power?”

Penny shook her head. “I have no intention of giving you a demonstration, so you can push that right out of your head. They are called Preternaturals for a reason, officers; ‘mind over matter’ is a rather serious relationship in our community.”

Lestrade perked up and leaned forward, turning his head slightly. “‘Our’? Did you just say ‘our’? As in you’re one of them?”

Penny rolled her eyes. “I am not a were-animal, Lestrade. You can have Dr. Watson”—she gestured casually toward the doctor sitting a few seats down the table on the other side of Sherlock—“run a blood test if you don’t believe me.”

“It shows up on a blood test?”

“Obviously, if you know what you're looking at; it’s an infection.”

“What will show up on yours, then?” DI Lestrade asked.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” John replied before she could. “I would know.”

“John, you know what she is?”

“Yes, I do, and I also know that she’s perfectly qualified for her position and fully capable of taking care of herself. If this murderer’s victim profile is persons with names vaguely resembling Ms. Davis’s, then we have a list of persons to keep an eye on.”

“Thank you, John,” Penny said. “That leaves an investigation for my team into the were-cat groups in London for any information.”

“And what are we supposed to do, then?” Sgt. Donovan demanded.

Penny folded the files shut and stacked them up before rising to her feet. “You are to wait for further instructions. I appreciate your assistance. Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, I’d like a word with you, if you have the time.”

Sherlock and John stood up and began to follow her from the room.

“You can’t involve civilians and not the police,” Sgt. Donovan snarled.

Penny stopped and turned around. “Oh, actually, Sgt. Donovan, I can. Because at my word, they are no longer mere civilians, and RPT plays by different rules than you. When your involvement is not counterproductive, I’ll be in touch. I am sorry that there’s nothing you can do at this time, but such is the nature of things.”

No further words were spoken until the three adults were outside of the Yard and in Penny’s waiting vehicle. “Are they _always_ so bloody difficult?”

“Yes, although you seemed to bring out the worst in them,” John replied.

“You scare them,” Sherlock announced. “You and the uncertainty that you represent.”

“Fear brings out the worst in people,” Penny agreed under her breath and sighed. “I am sorry if this makes your association with the Yard more troublesome in the future. I did warn you, Sherlock, that close association with me is bad for career advancement.”

“And you have yet to elaborate on whether that means you provoke it or prevent it,” Sherlock retorted.

“It can go either way, really,” John interjected. “It just depends on the day.”

“An unfortunate uncertainty, to be sure,” Penny agreed. “Now, despite your assurance that I am fully capable of taking care of myself, the notion that there is a rogue Pret sending me a very distinct message by killing off persons of similar nomenclature is not a pleasant one. There are certainly things I can do, but there are things I may need to request of you for which I must apologize in advance, as they will unlikely be pleasant.”

“What do you need us to do?” John asked.

Penny sighed and leaned back in her seat, shaking her head. “If I can be frank with you, John, I don’t know yet. I need to visit my office and review the database listings and make calls to the group leaders, but I am not certain what else can be done concurrently.”

“Your formality is growing wearisome, Ms. Davis,” Sherlock announced, looking up. “You’re beginning to sound like my brother.”

She pursed her lips and almost glared at him. “And yet you’re the one continually calling me Ms. Davis.”

“You never offered permission to call you anything else,” he pointed out.

“The truth, Sherlock,” Penny began tiredly, “is that I am somewhat frightened, and formal speech patterns are a coping mechanism. While Prets have certainly tested my authority before, none have done anything… quite like this. Most of them know the punishment for murder and have a better sense of self-preservation.”

“And just what is this punishment?”

“Do you recall what I did to that glass yesterday afternoon, Sherlock?” Penny asked him emptily. “Picture pieces of internal anatomy undergoing a painfully similar experience. I just don’t really put them back together. Flesh is harder to reknit. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet.” 

Sherlock shivered uncomfortably and went just slightly pale. “Is that what you did to the Pret who maimed you?”

Penny nodded simply. “And that, Sherlock, is why I am not the police.”

“Scarier, more effective, and more ruthless,” John murmured absently, the life behind his eyes far away from London, probably struggling with the sand. When he returned to the car, he nodded toward her. “We’ll do what we can to help protect you and solve this case. Whatever you need.”

“I may need a refuge in the event that my hotel is compromised,” Penny warned them seriously. “And providing me refuge can place you both in potentially significant danger—more danger than you’ve ever been in.”

John shrugged. “I’ve been shot; I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”

Sherlock’s gaze leveled on the woman across from him and didn’t waver. There was something in his gaze, something dark and heavy, something traumatized, perhaps, or hurt, or afraid, but not of the present. There was something in the set of his face that told Penny he’d been drug through hell, and probably more than once, and in that one gaze, Penny knew that Sherlock would do for her whatever she needed done, if only for the access to her wealth of new information. That was worth more to her than any verbal affirmation could have been.

Penny took the two men to their flat before going to her office; the less they knew, the less they were at risk. John got out of the vehicle without argument, but Sherlock leaned forward and gave her a hard look. “Take me to your office.”

“You haven’t authorized access to the information there and the less you know the less danger you’re in.”

“You spoke of recruiting me,” Sherlock reminded her seriously. “I want to see it.”

Penny pursed her lips and glanced out the open door. John had already gone inside. “And John?”

Sherlock shut the door and leaned back. Penny nodded for her driver, who drove away, and Sherlock replied, “I would not endanger John unnecessarily.”

At Penny’s office in the City of London, tucked away and unobtrusive to the general passerby, Sherlock soaked in a wealth of information and only thirsted for more. Penny searched their databases for were-cats that were of her stature and cursed their complete lack of picture files. That was going to be the next step in their database update. Picture files. Sherlock looked through folders of information and soaked it in, and even though Penny wondered what good it was doing either of them, she let him. Sherlock was known to make ingenious connections based solely upon information others deemed irrelevant.

At almost eleven that night, Penny locked her office down tight and took Sherlock back home to Baker Street. She was exhausted, and that Sherlock seemed to be fine just made her feel even wearier. She promised him—more because he made her than because she wanted to—that she would be back to pick him up in the morning for more research at her office, and then she left.

Although she did have to admit that she enjoyed spending the time with Sherlock. He made these comments under his breath that she doubted she was supposed to hear, but heard every time, and she usually had to hold back a giggle.

At the hotel, Penny showered and prepped for another full day on the job in her robe. No point in dirtying more clothes unnecessarily. While her nail polish dried, she looked over the data on Jenny Mavis again. She’d been a nurse, divorced, no children—for which Penny was insurmountably grateful. Dealing with orphaned children was as tiresome as it was heartbreaking, and she just didn’t have the energy for it this week. Lenny Davies had been a primary school teacher, married with a child. There was a note that they'd been contacted. Brenda was just a teen, still going by Benny, just graduated from high school. Orphaned already, had bounced from foster home to foster home for much of her life. As far as she could tell, the only similarities between these persons was their name's similarity to her own; otherwise, selection seemed completely random. It was weird.


	4. Chapter 4

Morning came several hours too soon for Penny’s taste, but she dutifully rose and dressed and trekked across town to retrieve her new companion before heading back into the City to resume work. Sherlock assured her that John had hours at the clinic and hadn’t the time to sit in an office to read files. It very nearly always put him to sleep when he did it with Sherlock. (Then again, they did that bit at night when the rest of the world slept, so the validity of the excuse was in the air.)

A week passed by this way, with Penny picking up Sherlock in the morning to spend the entire day in her office, reviewing databases and completing the other work that required completion regardless of the situation at hand. Mid-week, there was another murder: Manny Danes, government employee, was found mauled in an alley a block and a half from Penny’s hotel.

When Penny arrived with Sherlock—John not far behind, thanks to a call from his flatmate in the car—Lestrade and Donovan were not enthused. In fact, they were downright infuriated and demanded to know what they’d been doing the past four days to allow another murder to happen.

Catching sight of the mangled body, Penny held up a hand and slowly stepped past them toward the carnage, eyes narrowed. The only persons who had stepped closer to this body were the photographers who were required to capture the scene as fully as possible before the evi-dence dissolved. There were four bloody pennies in the right palm. Four murders, four pennies, four persons whose names were unfortunately similar to her own.

Shaking her head, Penny crouched on her heels and carefully ex-amined without touching anything. “Sherlock, would you bring me a pair of gloves please?” she called over her shoulder, keeping sight on a weird spot in the body cavity.

Not quite a minute passed and a pair of gloves dangled from gloved fingers near her face. She muttered a generic ‘thanks’ before she pulled them on and motioned toward the body. “Your skills are requested, Mr. Holmes.”

The two of them examined the body in their own way until John arrived, and then they backed up and let him do his examination while Lestrade and Donovan stood off to the side with their arms crossed and waited for the okay to step in. There was an astonishingly small amount of blood on the ground for the spread of gashes, and somehow they seemed... off. Once John stood up and nodded at Penny, she motioned toward Lestrade so that he could bring in his team. Penny brought John and Sherlock to the mouth of the alley and watched the Yard work.

“The body was missing a lot of blood,” John announced. “And not nearly enough was on the ground for the amount that was missing.”

Penny nodded with a frown and looked over at the body again. Weres don’t drink blood. What would have been done with it, then?

“The claw marks were the same size as on the other bodies,” Sherlock added, “but these were different.”

“Different how?”

“The others were done right-handed; these were left-handed marks. Also, the depths of the gashes were much deeper than the others, suggesting either longer fingers or larger hands.”

Penny swore under her breath and ran fingers through her hair. With a sigh, she began walking back toward Lestrade and the body. “It’s not the same perp, Inspector,” she called out.

Lestrade straightened and shot her a hard look. “You’re telling me that we have another murderer killing people in the exact same way?”

Penny nodded. “The gashes are different on this body, Inspector, I’m sorry. What that does mean, however, is that the murders are on somebody’s orders.”

“You think we’ve got someone ordering hit men around?”

Penny shrugged. “Trust me, I like it even less than you do.” Mostly because that equaled an immediate order of execution for whoever was giving the orders; the punishment varied for the hit men individually. Generally speaking, the weres that were doing the murdering in cases like this were incapable of disobeying an order—not just ill-advised for the safety of their person, families etc, incapable; power structures were unfortunately kind of like that. “I’ll call you when I have anything worth looking into.”

“Thanks,” he replied, nodding slightly. He was still angry, but he was less angry than Sgt. Donovan.

At the mouth of the alley, Penny opened her mouth to start talking to Sherlock and John, but her mobile rang in her pocket. Frustrated, she pulled it out and looked at the screen. Blocked. 

“Penny Davis.”

_“Ms. Davis; how are you?”_

“Well enough. May I ask who’s calling?”

_“This is Jeremy Reinhardt. You put one of my men in the hospital last night.”_

“Oh, he was yours? Well, that’s brilliant, then. Now we know who to fine.”

_“I was expecting an apology.”_

Penny laughed coldly. “Listen to me, Mr. Reinhardt; you are well aware of the rules and regulations governing Preternatural activities in the city of London. All of you are. You are also fully aware of the consequences of breaking those regulations. Frankly, your man is lucky to be capable of reporting back to you. I will not apologize for doing my job, Mr. Reinhardt, and I don’t especially care how that makes you feel.”

_“Oh, what clarity you’ve brought to the situation, Ms. Davis,” he replied, and although his voice was equally as cold as hers had been, it was also faintly smug. “Have fun with your murders; work fast.”_

The call ended abruptly, and Penny had a distinct feeling that she knew who was behind it all. She could be wrong, because he could just know about them—news about stuff like that travelled fast in the Preternatural community—but the tone of his voice… that was dangerous. A shiver sunk down the length of her spine and she took a deep breath.

“I believe,” Penny said to Sherlock, looking up from her phone screen, “that I have a suspect.”


	5. Chapter 5

Penny and Sherlock returned to her office to look for a Jeremy Reinhardt in any of their records. They gave the name to the police as well, so that they could do their share of looking. Penny doubted they’d find anything, but it would let them feel like she wasn’t actually cutting them out of the case, and the better she kept relations between them all, the better. She was willing to put money on Reinhardt being the culprit, but it was possible that the orders were coming down from somebody else and he was just the point of contact. But until they could find what group had been neglecting proper registration protocols, it would be almost impossible to find these people. She would make some calls to the local leaders tomorrow, after they’d actually had time to accomplish anything. On a side thought, she sent off an email to her colleague who was in charge of the Lion she’d incapacitated to do some very serious questioning, providing permission to get a little rough if necessary. Torture was inadvisable, because Prets had long memories, but if necessary, taking measures that were borderline torturous sometimes saved lives.

It was after lunchtime, and the two were sipping tea when Penny’s office phone rang, and she jumped slightly before reaching to answer it. “Penny Davis, Head of RPT.”

 _“Ms. Davis, I took the liberty of emptying your hotel room,”_ her assistant’s voice said shakily. _“Someone left a… a note… on your door.”_

“What did it say?” she asked quietly. Sherlock immediately set his full attention upon the redhead and strained his ears to hear both sides of the conversation.

_“It said ‘we’re coming’ and… it was written in blood.”_

Penny paled just slightly and gripped the phone a little tighter. “Thank you, Bates. Are you okay?”

_“Yes. And your room was unmolested as far as I could tell. Just… the note…”_

“Inside or outside?”

_“Inside,” Bates confirmed in a small voice._

“Keep close to Scotland Yard until I can get back to you with further directions. Call me with any more information.”

_“Yes, Ms. Davis.”_

Penny set the phone back onto the receiver and closed her laptop to take it with her. She glanced up and Sherlock’s mouth was set in a grim line.

“And so it begins,” he said simply, and the two rose together and exited the locked-down office. Sherlock had them stop at Covent Garden so that he could speak with some of his homeless network, and gave the car directions to meet them about twelve blocks away.

But within three blocks of their walk through, Penny noticed a particular couple of men trailing behind them and growing uncomfortably closer. Carefully, she moved closer to him and tipped her head into his arm to murmur, “Sherlock we’re being followed. Two men in black suits, approximately three-quarters of a block back. They’ve been trailing us since we got out of the car. I need you to lose us in this crowd. Can you do it?”

“Easily,” he replied and grabbed her hand. “You have to follow my lead; do not question me, is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Penny agreed and followed half a step behind him to let him take the lead. He made an abrupt turn and she resisted the urge to look behind them. They ran down the street to the busy marketplace and then, just as abruptly as they’d turned, they stripped off their outer clothes and suddenly he had a hat covering his unruly curls and they were lost in the throng of people. With as tall as Sherlock was, this wasn’t an easy feat, and she realized that he was slouching enough that his arm fit around her waist easily. After another turn past a shop, Sherlock pushed her into a partition and placed a hand on the crowd-visible side of her face and he murmured, “They’re too close. This has to look real” before he closed his eyes and kissed her.

Even knowing that it was just inconvenient acting for him and it wasn’t real, it was hard to keep herself from actually melting into the front of his body and losing herself in the movement of his lips against hers. She couldn’t help but wonder when and where he’d learned to kiss like that being as anti-social and overtly disinterested in the opposite sex as he was. 

After the initial two or three kisses, the shock of it sort of wore off, and it grew oddly comfortable, oddly natural. His other arm slid around her middle to hold her against the entire line of his body, and her hands found easy placement on his hip and the side of his face visible to anyone passing by. They snogged for a minute or two before he gently separated from her and leaned back to look around the partition. And then he just pulled away from her and nodded. “Clear. Come on.”

Neither one of them said another word to each other as they returned to the vendor who hadn’t even noticed their discarded jackets, navigated the region, and kept an eye out for followers. Sherlock stopped and spoke quietly to three different homeless persons, handing each of them at least a tenner before moving on. Precisely as requested, Penny’s car was waiting for them when they got there, and without further ado, they left the area completely. They met up with her assistant outside the Yard and Bates told her that he’d dropped off her suitcase in the back of her office, behind her desk. Noting how visibly shaken the poor young man was, she gave him the remainder of the week off and told him that he’d receive a call when he was needed again, which required further reassurance that he wasn’t being let go. It was a valid worry, considering that somebody got into her hotel room and he hadn't been aware until they'd completed the task (using, Penny was sure, the missing blood from the afternoon's body) and gone again.

Already exhausted and it was barely dinnertime. Penny directed her driver to take Sherlock home so she could figure out where to go in the meantime. There was a reason she stayed in hotels while working cases, and it was to protect herself the rest of the time.

Traffic was heavy, and by the time they finally got to Baker Street, it was almost eight. “I will be back in the morning,” Penny said distractedly, reading emails on her phone. “Same time. Please call me if anything happens.”

“Where are you going?”

Penny shook her head. “I have a couple of people to call upon be-fore the night is out. I cannot take you with me, for my safety, yours and theirs.”

Sherlock looked at her for a long moment before he finally moved to get out of the car. He leaned back in and held eye contact with Penny for a few more seconds. “Be careful, Penny.”

Penny nodded back to him and took a deep breath once he’d shut the door, letting it out slowly. “To William Paget’s residence, please.”

William’s daughter Alicia greeted Penny in the front yard and took her inside. “It’s nice to see you again, Ms. Davis,” Alicia said politely.

“It’s nice to see you, too, Alicia,” Penny replied. “How is school going for you? You must be in… don’t tell me… sixth grade now?”

Alicia nodded with a bright smile. “It’s good.” The pair rounded the corner and Alicia called out, “Dad, Ms. Davis is here to see you.”

“The study, please!” 

Alicia pointed to the correct door and put her head down a little. “I’m not allowed in Dad’s study.”

Penny smiled and thanked the young girl before walking on toward the London’s most powerful were-Jaguar. She was glad that he liked her, because he could probably overpower her before she could use her power on him to protect herself. She tried not to think about it. William Paget just wanted himself and his to live peacefully in society like normal people, and he was fully supportive of Penny’s endeavors to keep them safe from others, and others safe from them. It made everybody’s lives easier if the rules were created reasonably and followed strictly.

“Ms. Davis, how wonderful to see you!” the tall, bulky man boomed upon her entrance to the room.

“Mr. Paget, the pleasure is mine, as always,” Penny replied with a smile. “How are you and the family?”

“Oh, we’re doing well, doing well. Alicia’s got a piano recital next week. You should come!”

“I would love to, Mr. Paget, if I am able. When is it?”

“Thursday at two, at the Methodist Church just down the street,” he said cheerfully and picked up a flyer off his desk to hand to her. “Here, you can have this.”

“Thank you very much. I hope very much to attend.”

“Excellent. But I understand this isn’t a social call.”

Penny set the flyer back down on the surface of the man’s desk and folded her hands. “No, unfortunately it isn’t. I needed to talk to you about a series of murders over the past few weeks.”

William Paget sobered greatly and rose to his feet to shut the door. “Tell me about them.”

“Do you know the name Jeremy Reinhardt, Mr. Paget?” Penny asked, deliberately keeping the hope out of her voice.

“Should I?” he returned briskly.

“Four persons have now been murdered, the latest occurring late this morning. The first suspect is a were-cat, but we’ve yet to determine what kind. From the shape of the claw-marks, the were is approximately my size, maybe a little bit bigger, and right handed. The second is a little bigger than me, and left handed. These two are acting on the orders of a man who called himself Jeremy Reinhardt on the phone with me this afternoon. This name does not appear in our database, which means that either he is new to the area, or he’s managed to avoid registration with RPT.”

“There is no one in my prowl by that name, nor anybody strong enough to defy my orders and order others to kill. I assure you, Ms. Davis, if it is a were-Jaguar, it is not one of mine. Unfortunately, I do not know this Reinhardt, but I will ask around and call you if I learn of anything.”

“Thank you, Mr. Paget,” Penny replied earnestly.

“Are there any connections between the victims?”

Penny debated whether or not to tell him for a few seconds before she finally answered: “They all bear names similar in shape to my own.”

William Paget’s expression hardened. “I am sorry, Penny. I will do whatever I can to help you catch these people.”

Penny nodded and rose to her feet. She picked up the piano recital flyer and offered her hand to the man, who rose to his feet and took it, giving it a good shake. “Good to see you again, Mr. Paget.”

“And you, Ms. Davis,” he replied. “I hope to see you next Thursday.”

Penny left the Paget home and went straight to Bryon Thatcher’s house. He greeted her at the door and let her inside. His entire person just oozed suspicion and skepticism, like her presence in his kitchen was, in itself, an ill omen or something. He offered her tea, but she declined politely.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked. The alpha of the London werewolf Pack, Bryon was unfortunately familiar with the harder side of Penny’s position; the wolves just had a harder time behaving themselves close to the full moon. 

“Do you know anybody by the name of Jeremy Reinhardt?” she asked flatly.

Bryon frowned and pursed his lips, thinking hard for a minute be-fore he shook his head. “No. Can’t say as that’s a name I’ve ever heard before. Why?”

Penny resisted the urge to swear. “There’ve been a series of murders, Mr. Thatcher, and it would seem that this man is behind them. It is of the utmost importance that you contact me if you hear anything.”

Bryon Thatcher nodded his head seriously and promised to do so. Penny left after thanking him, and after her driver left the neighborhood, he asked where she wanted him to go.

She could probably rent another hotel room under an alias, but she’d already been under an alias, and they’d found her anyway. “My office, please.”

There was a reason the supply closet in the back had a thick memory foam pad, a stack of blankets and a pillow. It was less than ideal, but it would suffice in a pinch. Upon arrival, she told her driver to leave the car and go home to get some sleep, but please retrieve Sherlock from Baker Street at the usual time to bring him to the office. She didn’t turn the lights on, a “just in case” precaution, and used her phone’s flashlight to locate the bedding in the closet. She set up her ‘bed’ in the dark and then took her suitcase into the hidden half of the bathroom that included a tiny, simple shower.

Showered and in pajamas, Penny retired to the floor in the most hidden corner of the office and laid down. Immediately uncomfortable, but safe. She hoped.


	6. Chapter 6

She was barely up when Sherlock arrived in the morning, having slept poorly the night before. The bedding was all stashed back away in the bottom of the closet, out of sight, and she’d gotten dressed into black, pinstriped dress pants and a soft, flowy shirt that was, for the first time since she’d begun working with Sherlock, not silk. Her hair was a little big, but looked acceptable, so she left it. A little mascara and eyeliner later, and she considered herself acceptably dressed and prepped.

Her phone chirped the moment she stepped out of the bathroom with her suitcase, which she intended to put in the corner where she’d slept.

**\--Are you in your office already? /SH**

**\--Yes. I’ll let you in. /PD**

Immediately, Penny, put her suitcase down in aforementioned corner and hustled to the front to let the man inside, and the second that she saw him, she could only taste his lips, smell his cologne. She pressed her lips together to avoid scowling at herself and locked the door behind Sherlock again.

“Did you sleep in your office?” Sherlock inquired immediately.

“Yes.”

“And I assume you have an exceptional security system on the building?”

Penny nodded. “One of Mycroft’s best, as a matter of fact. It could probably only be safer if he and his were watching it personally.”

Sherlock nodded once and seated himself in his usual chair, thus beginning one more very long, very full day of RPT case work and attempts to locate this damned Jeremy Reinhardt. Nobody could just come into power enough to manipulate other people at the drop of the hat; he wasn’t a new Pret, he had to have come in from somewhere else. Or somehow manage to avoid detection long enough to get this far. Penny sent out emails after lunch to the RPT teams in Wales. Scotland and Canada, and then to the NPPF (National Preternatural Police Force) in America. If none of them responded affirmatively, then she’d send out more emails. But she’d start small. She preferred not to alert the other groups without very good reason, because it made life difficult for both the team members and for their respective Pret groups.

“Penny,” Sherlock suddenly said, looking up from a massively thick file. “Why are you not in any of these files? Are you excluding yourself from the databases?”

The redhead paused. “Those files, Sherlock, are were-animals only. I am not a were-animal.”

Sherlock put his feet on the floor and sat up straight, looking at her with curiosity sparkling in his already brilliant eyes. “What other kinds of Prets are there? What else are we living with?”

Penny smiled slightly. “Vampires, witches, the usual.”

“But what about you? What are you considered?”

Penny just laughed quietly. “I am the Head of RPT, Sherlock. It’s best left alone after that.” 

He looked at her seriously, and wisps of sensory memory from their kiss splashed over her like finger waves on a beach. She held firm, but he blinked like he knew she was distracted. Maybe she was inventing it in self-consciousness. Amazingly, he didn’t push it, but instead got up to use the bathroom.

At six, Sherlock announced that dinner was in order. Since it was the first time Penny had heard him say anything about food since they’d met, she decided to take it seriously, and so they packed her things into her vehicle and they left. He took her to Angelo’s, whose owner had a tendency to feed Sherlock free of charge in thanks for his work in the past. When they’d finished, and Penny had eaten more in one sitting than she’d eaten in the past three days combined, Penny had her driver take Sherlock home. But when he climbed out of the vehicle, he stood in the door and held his hand out to help her out for a long moment before looking in to see what held her up. “Ms. Davis, you are staying here tonight.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said at the beginning of the week that, should your hotel be compromised, you would need refuge. I am providing you refuge. You will be safer nowhere else, except perhaps under Mycroft’s nose, but this is close enough to it. You said your office could only be safer if Mycroft and his were watching it personally, welcome to that step. Send your driver home, and come inside. The less time we spend on the street, the better.”

Penny chose not to argue with him, even while knowing that she probably should. He picked up her suitcase out of the back and carried it up the stairs and into their flat for her, setting it down by the door.

John was sitting in his chair with the newspaper and looked up questioningly when he saw the small redhead. “Ms. Davis?”

“My hotel was compromised,” she replied simply. “Sherlock has demanded that I stay here.”

“Well, no place safer,” he replied cheerfully, repeating Sherlock’s earlier sentiment. Either Mycroft had them enveloped in a devastating illusion, or this was genuinely one of the safest places in London. Knowing Mycroft, it was probably the latter.

Penny worked from her laptop from the corner of their couch all evening. Sherlock and John came and went and did whatever it was they were doing, and Penny tried very hard not to watch Sherlock every time he passed through the room. It had been impossible to avoid replaying that kiss over and over in her mind, even though she kept trying to push it away, relegate it to a job-hazard or something. John brought her a cup of tea, for which she was inexhaustibly grateful, but then it came time for sleeping arrangements.

John, being the gentleman he was, automatically offered his room upstairs, but Penny could see the bags under his eyes and refused absolutely. Sherlock almost begrudgingly offered his room, with the excuse that he wasn’t going to need it because he didn’t sleep. But Penny refused that as well. It just felt weird—especially after their kiss the previous afternoon—and besides, the couch would be perfectly fine. Sherlock merely warned her that he wasn’t accepting responsibility if he kept her up all night due to his own nocturnal activities. But she insisted that she sleep on the couch, and so finally they left her to their various activities. Once John had gone to bed and Sherlock was conducting some sort of experiment in the kitchen, she changed into her pajamas—a black tank top and yoga shorts—and curled self-consciously on her side, facing the room. Before long, she had drifted most of the way unconscious, until a creak pulled her halfway back out of it. Sleepily, she opened one eye to see legs a short distance away from her. She opened the other eye and blinked until the room came into focus.

Sherlock was seated in the chair directly across from her, with his hands pressed together under his chin, his legs crossed, and his eyes leveled on her face. He didn’t react to her being awake and staring back as far as she could tell, but that didn’t mean he didn’t notice. On a whim emboldened by sleep deprivation and sustained, abnormally high stress levels, Penny very carefully reached out with her power to run a tendril of it along Sherlock’s neck and the side of his face. She watched his eyes close and his face slacken in response to the caress, and she wished she could actually feel his skin under her fingertips.

When his eyes reopened, they were very much focused on her. “Why did you do that?” he asked firmly, his voice low and somehow smoother than the silk he always wore.

“Because you’re beautiful,” she whispered, shaking her head slightly. “I’m sorry. I assure you it won’t happen again.” Sufficiently embarrassed and almost ashamed of herself, Penny turned onto her back and turned her face away from him.

Sherlock was silent as he watched the redheaded woman roll over to hide her face from him. His scalp still tingled from the ghost touch and he was startled to realize that he rather seriously wanted her to touch him with more than just a shadow of her power. Since their kiss in the marketplace yesterday, he’d wanted to be closer to the woman, wanted to touch her, wanted her to touch him. Penny was stretched across the length of the couch, and the shape of her body was small beneath the blanket. Her red hair was loose, and fanned out across the pillow.

Suddenly, she moved the blanket and rose to her feet, and, just as she had all evening, she refused to look at him as she walked past and then to the bathroom. And in that very moment, he made a decision he was certain he would regret later.

Penny splashed water on her face, but the towel she used to dab it dry smelled like Sherlock and her heart fluttered unhelpfully. She swore at herself and wanted to cry. She should have known better than to allow them to put her in their home. It was too personal for a forcedly professional relationship. She didn’t leave the bathroom until she had a firmer grasp on her self-control. One overreach of her boundaries was quite enough for one night.

Passing by Sherlock’s chair, she was pulled off-balance and landed gracelessly in the man’s lap. Gentle fingers swept her hair off her neck and hot breath hit her skin just before velvet lips brushed the same space. Without meaning to, she let out a breathy moan and immedi-ately clapped a hand over her mouth, closing her eyes against it. How in the hell was it that he could find the spot on her neck that completely unraveled her on the first goddamned try? It just wasn’t fair.

He kissed her neck again, just behind where it curved into her shoulder, and this time letting his tongue touch her skin first. She tasted clean, smelled faintly of her perfume and coconut shampoo. His hand slid upwards into her hair along the other side of her head to gently guide it out of his way; his other hand caressed down her arm and then fell to her hip, nestled into his lap. He felt the stirrings of something he rarely had to deal with and he wanted more of her.

An amorphous, warm sensation rifled through his hair, and, much to his surprise, a low groan passed through his lips, which were again touching the column of Penny’s neck.

“Sherlock?” Penny whispered nervously.

“If you tell me you don’t want me, I will let go and never touch you again,” Sherlock breathed against her shoulder.

Penny remained silent, part of her debating whether she should at the very least make him wait until the case was over. But she didn’t want to. Sitting in his lap with her ass against his pelvis, she could feel the start of his arousal, and she wanted so very badly it scared her.

“If, in fact,” Sherlock began roughly after a few moments of her silence, and his hand slid forward on her hip and found the skin just past the bottom of her shorts and caressed inward, “you desire the opposite…” And then his hand tensed on her leg and Penny’s insides clenched hard enough that her body rocked.

Penny whispered “Please,” behind her fingers, her eyes still closed. Sherlock made a sound in his throat and then pushed her off of his lap. He stood up and grabbed her hand and immediately, without warning, began walking toward his bedroom. 

Penny followed him, almost afraid that any second he would change his mind and send her away. Afraid that this, like the kiss in the marketplace, wasn’t real. She was barely in his room before he shut the door and pressed her against it, lifting her up to be level with him and he kissed her. This kiss felt different than the one in the marketplace; it moved differently, the press of his lips more insistent, but still soft. 

Immediately, Penny lifted both of her hands to Sherlock’s dark curls and buried her fingers in them. He let out a breath against her lips and she took the opportunity to twist her head and kiss his neck just beneath and behind his ear, which wrenched a surprised groan from his mouth. Sherlock’s hands left her ass to slide beneath her tank top and pull it over her head. Braless, his palms immediately cupped her small breasts and he kissed her again while one hand reached back down to her backside. She worked Sherlock’s soft t-shirt up off of him and then let her hands explore the surprisingly muscular plane of his chest and stomach. Things were alternating between fast and rough and slow and gentle at irregular intervals, and it was swiftly unraveling her already unsteady self-control.

Softly, Sherlock slid his hands up the backs of Penny’s legs to get a decent hold on her and then he backed away from the door and turned around to take steps toward his bed. He set her down and his hands slid down her sides to her hips, but then he stopped. He’d felt the row of scars on her side. He looked down at her and something passed through his eyes she couldn’t name. His eyes refocused on the scar on her shoulder, just outside of her collarbone, and then followed each slash across her right arm. “How are you still alive?” he whispered, cupping her chin in the hand that wasn’t still perched on her hip, and then he kissed her very softly, almost as if he was afraid he could break her now. 

He gently pushed her down onto the bed and gently pulled her shorts off of her, dropping them somewhere on the floor before undoing the button and zipper of his trousers before they and his pants were pushed down. Penny lost her breath at the sight of him, long and pale before her.

Sherlock climbed up onto the bed over Penny and kissed her deeply while one hand traced her curves down to her center and began to explore until Penny’s quiet, breathy moans were reaching a peak. And suddenly he felt something caress him, but her hands were tightly gripping his shoulders and he was between her legs, so that left her power. And the idea of her doing that while not fully in control of herself was a bit not good.

“No ghost touches,” Sherlock whispered coarsely against her skin. “Bad girl.” To mark the statement, he thrust two fingers fully into her depth, which caused her to gasp and writhe beneath him.

“Please, Sherlock,” she begged, clutching at him. “Please.”

He worked her with his fingers and held her down while she writhed. “Please what, Penny?” he asked, gritting his teeth. “Tell me what you want.”

Just as she opened her mouth to answer, his thumb brushed over a spot and she only gasped. “Please.”

His fingers vacated her just seconds before he began to work in his length, filling every millimeter of her until her muscles clenched around him and forced a groan from his throat. 

Sherlock leaned down and kissed his redhead, kissed his copper-haired Penny who had somehow unofficially given herself to him and asked him to take her, and he fucked her. But it was more than that, if perhaps only because he wanted it to be. But to his surprise, he did want it to be more than that. That blasted kiss in the marketplace had been real, too, despite what he’d told her. It had just been easier to pretend away, easier to write off as a meaningless necessity. This, though… the slide of his body in and out of hers, the combined rhythm of their breathing, the look on her face and the noises she made when his pace increased—this couldn’t be written off. This was real, and that was why it was frightening, and why he was sure he’d regret it later. Sentiment wasn’t an advantage.

He was beginning to sound like Mycroft.

Penny’s slight movements beneath him propelled him toward orgasm much more quickly than he had intended, but this wasn’t ending before she reached orgasm. He sat up to change angles and to allow himself better access and began to rub small circles over the surface of her clitoris. To his great satisfaction, it didn’t take long to throw her over her edge—again, judging by the similarity in her reaction from earlier. The intense muscle spasms around his body brought his own or-gasm, and with a quiet, choked cry, he came.

When it was over, Sherlock collapsed onto the bed beside her and pulled her into his chest. Breathlessly, he kissed her forehead and then lie still to catch his breath.

Penny lie on her side, facing Sherlock within the circle of his arms, and basked in the afterglow of good sex. But even still, she wondered why the cuddle. It just didn’t seem like Sherlock. Then again, sex hadn’t really seemed like Sherlock, either, so she didn’t know him well enough to make that inference.

The room was cold outside of the warm line of Sherlock’s body against hers. Her body broke out in goose bumps and she tried to avoid cringing or shivering, but she couldn’t seem to force herself to reach around for a blanket, wasn’t sure if she was supposed to leave again, if she was supposed to stay.

Sherlock looked down at her and sort of smiled before he reached over her and found a handful of silk sheet and down comforter and pulled over them both. Was everything this man owned silk? She couldn’t protest; it was nice.

Was he going to sleep with her in here? Were they going to sleep together? Well, they were certainly cuddling at least. And it worked out well enough, even with the significant height difference. Sherlock began to caress his fingers over the length of Penny’s back, shushing her quietly, and although it sort of startled her at first, it very swiftly lulled her into a relaxed enough state that very swiftly, she fell asleep in his arms.  
Penny woke up in the morning slowly, feeling oddly comfortable, only then she remembered three things:

1\. She was in Sherlock’s bed.  
2\. She was naked in Sherlock’s bed.  
3\. She was naked in Sherlock’s bed because they’d had sex last night.

His arm was around her, and she was using his shoulder as a pillow with an arm draped over his chest. He was equally naked, which probably meant that he’d fallen asleep with her. She couldn’t quite decide how she felt about that, although she wasn’t sure how she’d have felt about an alternative, either, so she tried not to think about it.

He looked so… innocent, in his sleep. Innocent wasn’t quite the right word either, though. But his face was free of his customary scowl, the perfect cupid’s bow of his mouth for once not turned down in even a slight frown. If she hadn’t been on a precarious cliff before in terms of falling hard for him, she certainly was now, and though she clung to her reason as tightly as she could, she could feel the ground crumbling beneath her.

Carefully, she extracted herself from him and got out of bed. It was seven, which was approximately when she usually got up for the day, and even though she was still exhausted, she had to get up. She picked her clothes up off of the floor and pulled them on and then silently slipped out, latching the door behind her.

John was standing in the living room, staring at her, when she turned around. She froze, and the two proceeded to stand and stare at each other in silence. John’s lips suddenly pursed and slid into half a smirk before he nodded and headed into the kitchen, the tie on his robe trailing after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My most sincerest apologies for the appalling hiatus in updates. I'm in my last semester of university and have been applying to graduate schools on top of everything, and my engagement ended suddenly, so I've been really overwhelmed.  
> I appreciate your attention more than you can know, and any comments and kudos are the most beautiful gifts I could receive. Keep rocking, beautiful people.


	7. Chapter 7

Penny had never in her entire life been so embarrassed. She shuffled silently into the lavatory to wash her face and to use the toilet.

She went back into the living room and crouched behind the couch to pick clothes out of her suitcase, and when she checked her phone, she realized it was Saturday. Despite having a job that periodically eradicated that whole “weekend” concept, Penny did her best to take off at least one day every week, but during cases like this, it didn’t always work out in her favor. The longest she’d gone without a day off had been just over a month, and she’d taken a full week when it was over.

Jeans and a flannel long-sleeve to wear over a lace tank top, a hair tie, and her small makeup bag accompanied her back to the lavatory, and when she came back out, dressed for the day, John was placing a mug of tea on the end table by the couch for her.

“I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you out of business attire,” John remarked when he saw her pass behind the couch with her things.

Penny just chuckled awkwardly and placed her clothes and makeup bag back into her suitcase, which she immediately zipped closed and stood up against the back of the couch. “Thank you for the tea, John.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Without another word, Penny sat down on the end of the couch and leaned against the armrest with her computer on her thighs and resumed her work from the night before, beginning by emailing all of her team members to check status and inquire about any informational progress on the issue at hand. John remained seated in his chair across from her, the newspaper up before him and hiding his face. Penny felt like she was under a microscope anyway, despite knowing that he wasn’t looking at her. It was like she could feel him thinking about her, even though that was ridiculous. She was telekinetic, not telepathic.

John specifically held the newspaper up in front of his face so that he didn’t have to look at Penny, because every time he saw her face he just wanted to laugh. Penny Davis had slept with Sherlock Holmes. He couldn’t help wondering what kind of sexual experience Sherlock could possibly have, but really preferred not to think about it. Since John had known him, Sherlock had never expressed any interest in women. Penny was different, yes, but what was it that made her so interesting to Sherlock? Why Penny?

Finally, John folded his newspaper shut in his lap, flipping his finger into the next page to open it again, and Penny almost flinched. “So,” he offered abruptly. “You and Sherlock…”

Penny’s face was immediately red and she choked.

“You’ve nothing to be embarrassed about, Penny,” John told her reassuringly. “Those cheekbones of his have hypnotized a lot of women. Just came as a bit of a shock to see him have done anything about it for once.”

Penny stared at his newspaper which was, once again, up in front of his face. Sherlock hadn’t been a virgin, had he? He certainly hadn’t come at last night’s activity with the uncertainty of inexperience, she had to admit. But if John had never seen Sherlock with a woman, then… 

Sherlock exited his room not quite five minutes after that, and went straight to the kitchen, where he made himself tea and then stood there, leaning against the counter, and staring at Penny over John’s head and newspaper. She was resisting the urge to look at him, and the tension vibrated across her body, which she’d clad in the most casual attire he’d seen her in to date—with the exception of her pajamas the night before. Somehow it just highlighted her features instead of dulled them.

Her flannel was open, but tied into a knot at the base, the sleeves cuffed up over her elbows, and her black lace tank top was see-through. Beneath her black bra was the bare, pale skin of her abdomen and, if he wasn’t mistaken, a belly ring. How hadn’t he noticed that the night before while taking stock of her barrage of scars? Had she been wearing one? Surely he’d have noticed something like a belly ring on Penny’s body.

Finally, she glanced over and made eye contact with him, and something in her expression looked almost pained, and it stung although he didn’t know why. Her gaze immediately retreated to her computer when John rustled his paper, but Sherlock couldn’t look away from the woman whose bodily rhythms had lulled him to sleep for longer than just a couple of hours.

Did John know? Considering the tension in the air between him and Penny this morning, he had to assume he knew. They were too talkative normally for this to be a case of ‘just nothing to say’ or ‘too tired to converse’. John knew, and Penny was embarrassed.

But why would Penny be embarrassed? Was it embarrassing to have been caught having had sex with somebody? Was that embarrassing? Or was it something else? Was she embarrassed to have been caught having sex with him? What was Penny embarrassed of? Why would she want to hide what she’d done with him?

Sherlock’s phone buzzed in the pocket of his house robe.

**\--Do not cross Ms. Penny Davis, little brother; she is a much big-ger storm than you are capable of weathering. /MH  
\--I haven’t the foggiest what you mean, Mycroft. Stop spying on me. /SH**

He ignored the next buzz in his pocket, staring hard at the red-head across the flat. She bit her lip when she was thinking about something, and her knuckle when she was nervous. She sucked on her bottom lip when she was pretending to be productive but was really just playing a game on her desktop, and right now she was both biting and sucking on her bottom lip. Regardless of what it meant, it made him want to 

Tea in hand, Sherlock walked out into the living room and sat down on the opposite end of the couch, putting as much distance between himself and the redhead as was possible without looking strange. But he lounged, matching Penny’s stance so that they faced each other. This meant that their legs had to overlap on the same middle ground, which gave him an excuse to touch her, and although she jumped slightly and began to pull her leg away, she stopped, leaving their calves touching. He picked up his laptop and got onto the internet. The three of them sat that way for a long time, silent apart from the clicking of mouse buttons and keys and the occasional deep breath or yawn.

John suddenly folded his paper and threw it onto the coffee table. “I’m going to run to the store. Any special requests?”

“No more Brussels sprouts!” Sherlock announced. “The flat stunk for days the last time you made the slime balls.”

Penny snickered under her breath, but remained dutifully silent while they discussed groceries. But then—“Penny? Anything?”

She looked up at him and blinked once in surprise. “Oh. Um. No, thank you, I’m fine.”

After John left, it was silent in the living room for several minutes. Self-consciously, Penny sipped her tea and then carefully glanced up over her cup to see that Sherlock was staring at her quite intently. Slowly, the cup returned to the coffee table and her fingers to her keyboard. She cleared her throat and pursed her lips into an awkward smile and then returned her gaze to her computer.

Sherlock shut his computer and put it on the floor. “Are you embarrassed to have slept with me, Penny?”

“No!” Penny exclaimed, a little too animatedly. Gently, she set her own laptop down onto the coffee table. “No, I… why would you think that?”

“You seem largely incapable of speaking to me, let alone looking at me, and John seemed equally as awkward, so I can only assume that he knows of it.”

“He… saw me… come out of your room this morning,” she confirmed.

Sherlock burst out laughing. “Oh, how I wish I could have seen the look on his face.”

Penny couldn’t help laughing with Sherlock. “It was pretty good.”

Sherlock shifted and picked up one of Penny’s feet, which he rested on his thigh and began to gently massage. “There are a great many things at which I am very, very good, Penny,” he said after a moment. “But you will have observed that socialization is not one of them. I manipulate people to get what I want, but genuine emotion? That is not my strong suit.”

“Are you telling me that you’re out of your depth, or admitting to having manipulated me for sex--or having manipulated me into sex to get something else from me?” Penny asked openly. “And I would really prefer you were honest with me, Sherlock; lies do not become us.”

Sherlock looked at her curiously, head cocked slightly to one side. “Although upon my discovery that you were attracted to me, my immediate response was to discover just how fully I could exploit it for the sake of manipulating you to my cause, it would seem that somewhere between there and here… that changed.”

Penny mulled that over for a few seconds. “Do you regret having slept with me?”

Sherlock slid one thumb up the entire length of Penny’s insole and watched part of her body relax without her permission. “Not at all. I found the experience… most enjoyable.”

Penny blushed just slightly, but also seemed to lose the ability to speak. Tongue tied, just because Sherlock enjoyed their sex. What was it about this man that made her feel like a teenager? But it was clear that Sherlock was waiting for her to answer him, so finally she said in a small voice, “It was good for me, too.”

Nothing was said for a long time, during which Sherlock began to massage Penny’s ankles and calves and Penny tried desperately not to make embarrassing noises about it. “How often are you underestimated because of your stature?” Sherlock finally asked.

Not the question Penny had expected. “Everyone does when they first meet me. Nobody does twice.”

Sherlock was quiet for a moment. “Penny… how many people have you killed?”

Penny picked up her tea and grimaced because it was barely tepid, but took a significant drink anyway. She thought about how to answer. Numbers meant nothing, at least not out of context. It wasn’t like she’d leveled villages or full groups or anything. It wasn’t even like she’d erased families. But there was enough red in her book to last a life-time—or several—and knowing that there would be more just made her feel old and tired. “Let me say that my body count rivals that of Dr. Watson’s, and let it be.”

“John was a doctor.”

“Yes. We played dangerous games in that sand box, Sherlock, all of us; some of us just got more blacked out in our mission reports than others.”

“What did you do in Afghanistan?”

“The same thing I’ve done in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Scotland: regain control of the Preternatural population. It’s a battle, Sherlock, and I cannot tell you how much I hope to never have to do it again.”

“How did you do it?”

Penny shook her head. “By making, and in turn cleaning up a lot of messes, and asserting far more authority than I have ever actually had.”

“You are quite good at asserting authority,” Sherlock chuckled. “Lestrade didn’t even question you when you strutted into the crime scene with a title that sounded made up.”

“I did not strut,” Penny replied indignantly.

Sherlock gave her a look. “You strutted.”

“Did not,” she mumbled and tried to take her leg back. Sherlock just grabbed hold, and with both of his large hands around her leg, she wasn’t getting away. He tugged her toward him across the couch and then stretched himself over her, and for just a brief moment, poised mere inches above her lips, Sherlock smirked. “You did,” he whispered, and then he kissed her.

This time, however, Penny was ready for it, and she kissed him back with a smile playing at the corners of her lips. Sherlock pulled away quite suddenly, lifting his head to stare hard at the door. A muffled sound greeted their ears, and then Sherlock picked up his laptop and sat back down as if he hadn’t just raised Penny’s libido by several degrees.

Penny didn’t sit up, just scooted back until her head was against the armrest, and picked her laptop back up, tapping a key to wake it out of its sleep and swiftly unlock it before John came through the door, fully expecting to be accosted with an otherwise-occupied roommate and guest.

Who were, indeed, otherwise occupied, but not with each other. Breathing a sigh of almost-relief, John traipsed into the kitchen and put the groceries down onto the table. “Sherlock, come deal with your fingers or I will throw them away!”

It was like the younger Holmes had a spring in his ass, the speed with which he erupted out of his seat. Penny sniggered and checked her email.

**To: Penny Davis, Head of RPT  
From: Jacobi Ennz, Chief of NPPF  
Re: Person of Interest  
Ms. Davis,  
Upon receipt of your email yesterday, I did some research and I have some information which may be useful. Attached is a PDF which may pertain to this Jeremy Reinhardt you’re look-ing for. Good luck, and please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.  
As this man has committed crimes in the United States, should you apprehend him, I would remind you that it is your duty to return him to us for justice. We appreciate your coopera-tion in this matter.  
Sincerely,  
J. Ennz**

Penny slid back into an upright position on the couch and faced forward, placing the laptop square on her lap before she opened the file and was greeted with the rap sheet of a tan man by the name of Jerry Reine, who was a level 4 were-lion on the American system of Pret ratings. Not familiar with their rating system, Penny could only assume that meant he was pretty damn powerful, just simply knowing what she knew. If this man was the same man she was looking for—and it seemed plausible, although why he would use an alias that was damn near his real name was beyond her understanding—then it was unfortunate that she was going to have to kill a member of an already somewhat rare group. And she was doubtless going to have to kill him, if she could manage to accomplish the task. Penny returned to the email to respond to it with a request for a breakdown of their Pret rating system and resisting with all her might the urge to respond sarcastically to his demand to get their fugitive returned. Sure, she thought, almost smirking, I’ll send you whatever’s left of him.

Immediately, Penny locked down her computer before plugging in a USB drive with access to databases to which she technically shouldn’t have had access and searched for Jerry Reine. A frown set in between her eyebrows as she watched the program’s algorithms work, and she prayed it wouldn’t be as unsuccessful as everything had been the past week.

Her phone rang while her computer was still processing. William Paget.

“Penny Davis.”

“Penny, this is William Paget.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Paget?”

“I have information regarding your Jeremy Reinhardt. He’s a lone were-lion Rex from the States, killed the last two Reginas who tried to call him and fled the country. I’m not sure why he’s got it out for you, but he’s seriously upsetting the balances in the Liverpool and Cardiff prides, not to mention the lone Rexes that have been behaving in London.”

Penny resisted the urge to swear into her phone. Just bad form. “Thank you, Mr. Paget. Please call if you hear anything else.”

“Of course. Stay safe, Ms. Davis. We are all in danger should you fail.”

“A comforting thought, to be certain,” Penny replied blankly.

“Indeed. You have my support, should you require it. Please do not hesitate to call for anything, Ms. Davis.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“Of course. Goodbye, Ms. Davis.”

Penny hung up her phone and reached back to tighten her pony-tail. **NO RESULTS** blinked on her computer screen about three seconds later and Penny did swear.

Sherlock poked his head into the room from the kitchen. “Is there a problem, Penny?”

“I have an American-outlaw Rex on the loose in my city, killing people and fucking with lion prides, powerful enough that killing him will be really difficult. Yes, Sherlock, there’s a fucking problem.”

“Would you like me to phone Mycroft?” he offered.

Although Penny had to admit she was tempted, she wasn’t ready for another Holmes man to intervene. Not yet. She could barely handle the one she did have around— and she wouldn’t really consider letting him get the better of her libido “handling him.”

She declined the offer, although if Mycroft really did keep as close an eye on 221B as Sherlock and John were convinced he did, then she was sure that Mycroft already knew of the situation and was likely already doing something about it. Good ol’ Mycroft, cutting out the pleasantries and getting straight to work.

“Then what do we do now?”

Penny sighed and rubbed her forehead. “We need to know who he’s been using to commit these murders so that we can make sure that they’re safe. We need to make sure he doesn’t kill anybody else, and especially not me. And we need to know where he’s hiding.” Mostly she needed to make sure that she didn’t end up dead before the situation was neutralized.

The remainder of the day was spent observing and coping with what John informed Penny was typical Sherlock behavior: sporadic movement, nonsensical outbursts, intensive babbling, and a lot of pacing. And then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped, and Sherlock disappeared into his bedroom and shut the door firmly behind him.

John shook his head. “If he comes out of there before at least an hour has passed, it’ll be a first.” He said it almost more to himself than to Penny, but then he turned to her and shrugged. “Will you be alright if I go out? I had plans to see a mate this afternoon, unless you need me to stick around.”

Penny shook her head and insisted that he fulfill his plans. They’d let him know when they needed him back. Without further ado, John picked up his jacket off of the back of his chair and left the flat. Once again, things fell oddly silent, and Penny couldn’t help but feel awkward, like she wasn’t supposed to be there.

She stretched out on the couch with her phone on her abdomen and let her mind run over all the data, but inevitably got stuck on the questions. Namely: How did Jerry Reine-slash-Jeremy Reinhardt even know she existed, and furthermore, why the hell did he care? So she policed the Preternatural population in England; so fucking what? Why did he care? Did he think that offing the leader was going to magically solve all his problems?

In a way, Penny understood why he killed the Reginas who’d been powerful enough to call him to mate in the States. The Regina’s call is impossible to ignore, and the force behind that power is literally binding. These were-lions are forced to answer the call of any Regina who is powerful enough to pull them in like the oceans to the moon, and as a Level 4 Rex? Penny doubted he was interested in being controlled in any way by anyone. For any reason.

But that still didn’t answer why he was out to get her.

Eventually, the noisy part in the front of her mind where thoughts were strung into words was silent, her racing thoughts sinking down into the sublevel where synaptic activity is incoherent at best. Her phone buzzed periodically on her stomach, emails and a few text messages, evident by the vibration patterns; Penny didn’t check them.

Simultaneous with the click of a latch, Penny sat upright, her phone dropping into her lap. A face hovered in her mind’s eye, accompanied with the simple memory of brushing off the romantic advances of the owner in the Underground. She’d felt a hint of his power brush against her meta-shields and noted that his power tasted animalistic. Jeremy Reinhardt wanted to kill her because he hadn’t been powerful enough to control her like the Reginas had been him.

Sherlock entered the room, already mid-sentence about something Penny hadn’t really caught. He fell silent when he noticed the look on the woman’s face and frowned. “What?”

“I figured it out.”


End file.
